It's becoming more obvious to the American people every day that this administration was slow to respond to the crisis in the Gulf. And the Democrats don’t have a plan. They don’t have a clear plan to contain the sea of oil in the Gulf. And they don’t have a plan to contain the sea of red ink here in Washington, D.C.

For the first time since the current budget rules were established in 1974, Democratic Leadership in the House has announced that they won’t do a budget this year. It was an interesting announcement made by Majority Leader Hoyer, especially considering Mr. Hoyer’s remarks back in 2006, when he then stated as the House Minority Leader:

We
are facing an existential moment on our budget deficit and long-term debt.
After 80 years of painstakingly weaving a social safety net, will we be able to
afford it in the future? Will our budget simply become dominated by interest on
the debt and entitlements? Will we wake up one morning and discover that the
world’s financial markets have lost confidence in the United States and we
become Greece — an economic basket case? Will we be able to afford the needed
investments in education, infrastructure and innovation that have powered our
economy?

Democrats
once called
passing a budget “the most basic responsibility of governing,” intoning that “if
you can’t budget, you can’t govern.” Yet House Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer (D-Md.) announced
today that Washington Democrats are cancelling the budget this year,
making it the first time in the modern era that
the House has not passed a budget. That is the ideology of Washington Democrats: just
keep spending taxpayers’ money — with no plan, no discipline and no
accountability.

Recently, my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that will undoubtedly further harm our already weakened economy by discouraging investment in businesses and real estate. With national unemployment at 9.5 percent and no sign of relief in sight for the real-estate market, now is no time to be discouraging this type of investment and the jobs that it creates.

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday:

It’s now official. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill are starting to signal their intention to raise taxes on the middle class.

The House Majority Leader in a speech today warns that in order to do anything about the debt crisis Republicans have been speaking about on the Senate floor in recent weeks, President Obama will have no choice but to break his campaign pledge of no new taxes for millions of American families.

Hoyer delivered remarks Tuesday morning on the imperative for solving the nation’s fiscal crisis, the need for bipartisan cooperation on this issue, and how to balance economic recovery with long-term deficit reduction, at a Third Way event at Union Station. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:

“This month, a Gallup poll asked Americans to name the greatest threats facing our country. Two answers tied for the top choice. One was terrorism. The other was debt.

To reduce waste in the federal government,
we need to shine a light on how the government performs. That’s why I applaud
the House passage of a bill I authored, H.R. 2142, the Government Efficiency,
Effectiveness and Performance Improvement Act.

Today, President Obama joined Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in Columbus, Ohio, to break ground for the 10,000th road project funded through the president’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus program.